of Christ our Saviour. Some sign of his
repentance may be found in a tradition handed down by the islanders,
that he had given orders that everyone on the island should repeat each
noontide the prayer of the returning and repentant prodigal: "Father, I
have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be
called thy son."

Four white men had been saved by the interference of the Tahitian women
from the fate of their comrades, but they did not feel safe; they
believed that the men were still seeking their lives, and, as they
imagined, in self-defence, they determined to put these their enemies to
death. Thus the evil begun by the mutiny still went on from crime to
crime, seeming to grow ever deeper and wider. For the dark and terrible
story is not yet ended. Two of the four remaining Englishmen soon after
came to a violent end, while intoxicated by a drink which they had
contrived to make from some of the plants which they found on the
island, thus bringing into this lovely refuge the vice and drunkenness
which beset crowded cities.

The sorrowful tale has hitherto been all dark, ever growing more gloomy
and hopeless; but now for the first time a faint pencil of light, like
the first streak of dawn, marks the sky, a ray which, like all true
sunshine, comes from heaven and from God. The great and loving Father
had not forgotten the children who had so long forgotten Him; this
little island, so far from the eyes of human watchers was not unseen nor
unregarded by Him. His messengers, the books which tell of Him, were
still there, though forgotten and unread; but the time was now come when
they were to speak again, and were to be heard and obeyed.

The two remaining mutineers were a sailor named Alexander Smith, or, as
he now called himself, John Adams, and a midshipman named Edward Young.
The midshipman had been well educated, and had learnt above all, in his
childhood, the blessed lessons of God's love, and of the grace of
Christ. These lessons, too long unremembered, now came back to him.
Perhaps he thought of the days when, a young child, he had knelt at his
mother's knee, or standing by her chair, had read one by one, as her
finger slowly pointed them out, the words of the Holy Bible.

The good seed had lain long in a barren soil, now God in His mercy sent
the rain and sunshine of His grace to cause it to spring up at last. No
sooner had Edward Young begun to desire to return to the Saviour whom he